Discussion: Strategic Manufacturing Policy
The House of Quality, at first glance, may appear very complex and challenging; but as you examine the process, you will see how it builds into and upon a basic decision matrix. What is a decision matrix? It is an effort to quantify variables to make the best decision possible.
For example, let's say that you are in the process of buying a house. The first thing you want to do is to determine what the key variables are that will help you make your decision. Some of the variables might include a quality school district, safety based on crime statistics, number of bedrooms, proximity to shopping, and so on. The second thing you would do is weight these variables based on a total of 100 points (or 100%). If you have determined the important variables correctly and weighted them to your real desires, you are ready to start looking at houses. You can score each house in each category on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the best fit and 1 being the worst fit). Looking at 50 houses and scoring each house on this scale, you would finally multiply each variable by each score and tabulate the total for each house. The highest score should be the best choice.
In business, this can work extremely well for such things as determining which of dozens of vendors will best meet your needs. Discuss the following in relation to this:
a) Based on your real-life experiences, identify a situation in which this decision-making process could have been, or could be in the future, an effective tool.
b) What important variables can you identify for your example, and how would you rate them?
The response should include a reference list. One-inch margins, Using Times New Roman 12 pnt font, double-space and APA style of writing and citations.